National Health Profile 2019

• Union Health Minister has released the 14th edition of the National Health Profile 2019.

What is National Health Profile (NHP)?

• The NHP is an annual stocktaking exercise on the health of the health sector.
• It provides a comprehensive framework on the socio-economic health status and the status of demographic and health resources in the country.
• It is prepared by the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI).
• The NHP was first published in 2005. Ever since the profile has been released every year and this year, is its 14th edition.

Utility of NHP

• The NHP helps the government navigate health needs and issues of the population and devise area-specific program strategies.
• Good-quality data can enable policymakers to make evidence-based policies and aid the effective implementation of various schemes.

Highlights of the 14th edition of the NHP

Per capita health expenditure

• In 2016, India’s Domestic general government health expenditure stood at $16 per capita.
• This is lower than Norway ($6,366), Canada ($3,274), Japan ($3,538), Republic of Korea ($1,209) and Brunei Darussalam ($599).
• The American system, though, is considered neither ideal nor economical. This data has been sourced from the Global Health Expenditure Database of the World Health Organisation.

Disease profile

• The NHP also notes the change in disease profile of the country with a shift towards the non-communicable disease from communicable ones.
• It has been observed that the non-communicable diseases dominate over communicable in the total disease burden of the country.
• Dengue and Chikungunya, transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, are a cause of great concern to public health in India.
• In the same period, disease burden from non-communicable diseases increased from 30 per cent to 55 per cent.
• DALYs are an international standard of disease burden that measures how much of a normal life span of an individual is taken away by a disease related morbidity of mortality.

Life expectancy

• Life expectancy in India has increased from 49.7 years in 1970-75 to 68.7 years in 2012-16.
• For the same period, the life expectancy for females is 70.2 years and 67.4 years for males.
• For comparison, in last year’s survey, the life expectancy had increased from 49.7 years in 1970-75 to 68.3 years in 2011-15.
• For the same period, the life expectancy for females is 70 years and 66.9 years for males.

Economically active population

• On demographics, the survey found the high incidence of the young and economically active population.
• The survey notes that 27% of the total estimated population of 2016 was below the age of 14 years.
• Majority (64.7%) of the population were in the age group of 15-59 years i.e. economically active, and 8.5% population were in the age group of 60-85 plus years.

Birth/Death rates

• There has been a consistent decrease in the birth rate, death rate and natural growth rate in India since 1991 to 2017.
• As on 2017, India has registered birth rate of 20.2 per population of 1,000 and death rate of 6.3 while the natural growth rate was 13.9 per population of 1,000.
• The birth rate in rural areas was higher than in the urban.
• Similarly, the death rate and natural growth rate were also higher in rural areas as compared to the urban.

Sex Ratio

• As per the NHP, sex ratio (number of females per 1,000 males) in the country has improved from 933 in 2001 to 943 in 2011.
• In rural areas the sex ratio has increased from 946 to 949.
• The corresponding increase in urban areas has been of 29 points from 900 to 929.
• Kerala has recorded the highest sex ratio in respect of total population (1,084), rural population (1,078) and urban (1,091).
• The lowest sex ratio in rural areas has been recorded in Chandigarh (690).

Dip in IMR

• The infant mortality rate (IMR) has declined considerably (33 per 1,000 live births in 2016), however differentials of rural (37) and urban (23) are still high.

Various causes of death

• During the year 2015, 4.13 lakh people lost their life due to accidental injuries and 1.33 lakh people died because of suicide.
• Suicide rates are increasing significantly among young adults and the maximum number of suicide cases (44,593) is reported between the age group 30-45 years.
• The total number of cases and deaths due to snake bite are 1.64 lakh and 885, respectively, in 2018.
• The total number of disabled persons in India is 2.68 crore.

Pollution related illness

• Air pollution-linked acute respiratory infections contributed 68.47 per cent to the morbidity burden in the country and also to highest mortality rate after pneumonia.
• Acute diarrhoeal diseases, caused due to drinking contaminated water, caused the second highest morbidity at 21.83 per cent.
• Cholera cases went up to 651 in 2018 from 508 in 2017, the report showed. Uttar Pradesh followed by Delhi and West Bengal had the highest cases.

Medical education infrastructure

• The NHP has noted that medical education infrastructure has shown rapid growth over the past few years.
• The country has 529 medical colleges, 313 Dental Colleges for BDS & 253 Dental Colleges for MDS.
• The total number of admissions for the academic year 2018-19 in Medical Colleges is 58756.